A GBI medical examiner said Antonio Santiago was shot from 2 to 6 inches away and died instantaneously.

Defendant Karimah Elkins sits quietly as her son, defendant De'Marquise Elkins, enters the Cobb County Superior courtroom Monday for his trial before Glynn County Superior Court Judge Stephen Kelley for the alleged killing of a 13-month-old child. Karimah Elkins is on trial for tampering with evidence, possession of a weapon by a felon and a probation violation.

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MARIETTA, GA. - Lawyers made opening statements Tuesday afternoon in the trial of a man accused of shooting a baby to death in his stroller with attorneys predicting the case would last all week and possibly part of next week.

An indictment accuses De’Marquiese Elkins, 18, of shooting 13-month-old Antonio Angel Santiago to death and wounding his mother, Sherry West, on Brunswick street in a failed armed robbery attempt.

Several of the women jurors were visibly shaken when prosecutors began showing crime scene and autopsy photos of Antonio bundled in a jacket, mittens and knit hat lying lifeless on a stretcher with a bullet wound between his eyebrows.

Jurors stopped taking notes when the photos appeared on a giant computer screen across the courtroom. One dabbed her eyes.

Prosecutors say Elkins murdered Antonio when he and co-defendant Dominique Lang, 15, came upon the child’s mother Sherry West pushing the stroller. They assert Elkins carried out a threat to shoot Antonio and then shot West in the leg when she refused to give up her purse.

The defense argues that West and the child’s father, Louis Santiago, conspired to murder the child for a life insurance payout.

However, the first Brunswick police officer on the scene, detective Angela Smith, said West was crying hysterically, “Save my baby. Don’t let him die.”

West was shot in the leg and complained her left ear had also been shot. Smith said West was upset when the detective told her the child was pronounced dead at the scene.

Smith also testified that both parents tested positive in a gunshot-residue test, adding that the two were holding hands in the hospital emergency room before the test.

An emergency medical technician testified that Antonio could not be revived at the scene. Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical examiner James Downs testified that the single gunshot was made from 2-6 inches away because of the gunpowder burns around the wound.

“Given the course that the bullet took through this child’s body, this death would have been instantaneous,” he said. “...There was no surviving this injury.”

Gough tried four times to ask Downs if there was a less painful or more merciful way to kill someone. Kelley prohibited it, but the doctor did say lethal injection and electrocution could be as quick and painless.

Earlier, jury selection was marked by a dispute over the racial makeup of the panel, with the judge rejecting defense objections that African-Americans were improperly excluded.

But a statistician testified Tuesday there is a 200 to one chance of random selection yielding a jury with no African-Americans in the murder trial of a Brunswick man accused of shooting a baby to death in his stroller.

Atlanta statistician Jeffery Martin, who frequently testifies for defendants, testified Tuesday morning before lawyers made their opening statements and prosecution witnesses laid out the grizzly details of the case.

“What the statistics are telling us is that there’s something other than random going on,” Martin said.

“You simply can’t expect a young black man accused of murdering a young, white child anywhere in America not to object,” said Gough.

Gough told Kelley that he didn’t know why procedures used in Cobb County to select jurors resulted in a jury that has no blacks. But, he argued that it is a violation of Elkins’ constitutional right.

The case was moved to Cobb County because of massive pre-trial news coverage in Glynn County.

A Cobb jury administrator, Debra Mathews, testified that the three potential jurors who showed up late for duty Monday - one white man, a white woman and a black woman - were too late to be in the 48 available for Elkins’ trial. She also testified that people who had been allowed to miss jury duty for previous Cobb County trials were put at the head of the line for consideration in Elkins’ case. Mathews said she couldn’t say if those people were more likely to be white.

Kelley has allowed Gough to make his case about the jury makeup, but he hasn’t been swayed. Kelley noted that a computer randomly picked those called for jury duty and then shuffled those who answered their jury notices.

“It’s not even random once, but it’s random twice,” Kelley said.

In the end, Kelley seated the Cobb jury of 12 and three alternates. Two of the alternates were black women.

Among the 15 jurors and alternates are nine men and seven women. Two of the men are fluent in Spanish, and several of the planned witnesses are Spanish speakers. One of the Cobb County jurors lived in Brunswick for a year.

Because Elkins was 17 when 13-month-old Antonio was killed in March, the state cannot seek the death penalty.

Lang is being tried separately because he is supposed to testify against Elkins. Being tried with Elkins is his mother, Karimah Aisha Elkins, 36, who is accused of tampering with evidence and making false statements to police. An indictment says she and her daughter, Sabrina Elkins, who will also be tried separately, threw the .22 caliber gun used in the shooting into a saltwater pond and gave lied to police about her son’s whereabouts at the time of the shooting.

Sad that I had to explain something so simple to adults. Trolls are found in every forum so I shouldn't let you two get under my skin. Carry on. Please continue telling us how much more enlightened than everyone else you are. But do you mind if I save this thread for after the verdict is in?

Woody & Howard-it isn't neccessary to paint me as an idiot. People can have access to the same information and reach different conclusions. Unlike your world where, apparently, everyone agrees on everything. That must be a pleasant place.

The only reports I have seen that deny it is the weapon are statements from the defense attorney or blogs expanding on his denial. Law enforcement (the people who would actually know) have not confirmed or denied. At least not to my knowledge.

Again, this is an opinion forum used for discussion. At some point you will encounter someone who disagrees with you. Demanding "proof" and "evidence" is juvenile. Do you really think anyone here has more information that the police or news reporters? We read the stories, form an opinion, and express it. Expecting anyone to settle the case here and now is as pointless as insulting other posters. Grow up.

Tater - You are correct with respect to the bullet needing to be in contact with the barrel to create the markings needed to match or rule out. My point was a little bit tongue-in-check trying to demonstrate why it would be easier to rule out a weapon of the wrong caliber than it would be to prove it was the murder weapon via bullet striations. The other weapon “fingerprint” (assuming a casing is left at the scene) is the firing pin imprint on the back of the cartridge – considering the round used to kill the baby was a “rim-fire” model and all other calibers are “center-fire,” there’s another impossible match.

All predicated on the “found” weapon being the wrong caliber, as I previously read and heard in multiple accounts on in/on the news.

Woody. I thought we needed the bullet to go through the actual barrel to see it if this is the gun used it the murder. Your way with a bigger barrel would not show any marking on the bullet, because it did not get "scarred" while traveling down the barrel. It is the barrel and the markings on the lead bullet, that is the fingerprint to determine if that gun was used or not. Right??